Doctrine and Denominations

Each apostle of Christ had a different focus in his ministry. Each follower of the apostles interpreted the words and stories with a different emphasis. And that is where the first church divisions and fighting began. Paul attempts in many letters to address these arguments. Even so, the followers of Jesus grew into such a throng (many being gentiles) that the message began to be buried under the typical manipulation of men seeking power. The popularity of Christianity grew even though followers were being persecuted and executed. It became clear that that joining forces would make a stronger contingency against current oppressive powers. Constantine, not a church leader but a conqueror, decides it is time to adopt Christianity as the dominant religion and orders a council to choose the writings that should go into a final document which became the Bible. They chose epistles that corroborated the stories of Jesus and included the Jewish historical accounts and prophesies. Other documents were ordered to be destroyed. Recently, the gnostic gospels were discovered in Egypt. Much research has since been done to substantiate the bible stories and additional writings. The writers were directly connected to the disciples of Jesus and Paul. The biggest difficulty has been translations into Latin and English from the Greek or Aramaic language. One fact remains: the lessons of the New Testament are beautiful and complete in relational instruction. No society has completely embraced and followed those lessons. The United States claims to be founded on Christian ideals, but that is only partially so. The Roman Empire did an incredible job spreading its ideals through force. And today, many people claim Christ as their Savior. How many do you know truly reflect the teachings?